Shapeways is excited to announce the latest social feature on the site: Follow a Designer! Now you can see the latest from your favorite Shops and Designers curated in your custom feed. It’s easy to get started, just start browsing. Click “follow” on the designer cards of the designs you love (process illustrated below), and come back to check your feed to see their latest updates. There is a lot of social noise on the web, and here you can quietly browse products in peace.
The Feed is in the top navigation bar of the Shop tap and Shapeways homepage. Even if you aren’t following any designers yet (but you will be after reading this) you can see the global feed: a stream of products and actions taken by your fellow Shapies like adding to lists, uploading, adding photos etc.
Since we introduced “Follow,” I’ve been going through my favorites and following the designers I want to always know the latest on. For you, this may mean following designers whom you’ve purchased models from, or creatives you’ve always looked to for inspiration in your own work. Hopefully it’s a combination of both, and affords more opportunities to connect the greater Shapie community. Here’s a snapshot of my feed from a few moments ago. Looks like kspaho is submitting some great models for our collaboration with Hasbro; I spy Dragonvale and Transformers!
It’s easy to follow a designer when you’re browsing products, like this epic Caffeine Molecule Coffee Mug from Joaquin Baldwin:
Follow is below the “Contact” button on the designer card to the right of the product, here’s a closeup:
You will know you’re following the designer when the button reads unfollow:
You can also follow a designer when viewing their shop up in the top banner. Here’s Bathsheba’s Shop for example, whom I highly recommend everyone follow, especially if you like sculptures that push the limits of 3D printing.
This is also a great reminder to add your twitter handle(s) to your profile- it shows up next to “follow” as well. It will encourage shoppers and fellow designers alike to connect to you through their preferred platforms. Here’s a sample tweet illustrating my joy about following Joaquin Baldwin, with a photo (tweets with photos get 3x engagement) and a link back to Shapeways to make any potential sales for him seamless:
What do you think of Follow and the Feed? Let us know in the comments here or in the forum. We always welcome your feedback.
seriously, who cares?
Fix the upload, model control and selling experience. This is useless
Hi Abel,
We are always looking to improve all aspects of Shapeways. If you’d like to help define the future and test features, I encourage you to sign up to be a Beta Tester for us here: https://docs.google.com/a/shapeways.com/forms/d/1r9RORW0RJgnWGJGC8Oh6VjZmZWLRvVhqdkeHbkv8YZA/edit
Hey Abel,
I’m the Product Manager in charge of the Upload experience and would LOVE to hear more about the issues you’re having with it. We are constantly trying to improve the upload process at Shapeways and are always looking for feedback.
Could you please create a thread here: https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=thread&frm_id=101&
I’ll take a look and do my best to fix any issues!